otence could not perform. In creation we see the hand, in redemption the heart of God! 4. So loved them? as to paralyze hell, as well as heaven in astonishment. 66 Angels' minds are lost to ponder." So loved them? as to render his love unutterable! "And when you've raised your highest notes, Application: His love can ne'er be told." 1. The views we should entertain of God the Father. 4. Love him again, and keep his commandments. Psalm xvi., 11.—In thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right hand are pleas ures for evermore. OUR attachments here, even as Christians, are liable to be broken or loosed, sometimes by the sacrilegious hand of vio lence, sometimes by the calls of duty, sometimes by Providential circumstances: in the last two cases, the attachment remains in spirit; and this leads us to remember each other and to inquire after absent friends. This mutability has the effect in good men of leading them onward to that place where they shall be no longer strangers nor pilgrims-the everlasting home! In the prospect of our separation we cannot do better than direct you to that heaven where there "is fulness of joy," and to "God's right hand, where there are pleasures for evermore." Jesus adopted the same method in removing from his dis ciples: "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." The context refers to the eternal world, and directs us, I. To the place. II. The nature of our state. I. To the place: "In thy presence"-" at thy right hand." These are metaphors adapted to our senses. "In thy presence." God is an infinite Spirit-possesses no parts he is equally in hell as in heaven-we cannot flee from his presence. But any place where he has made a visible display of his glory may more especially be called his presence-Moses and the bush. That such a visible display of glory exists somewhere, St. John assures us in Revelations: "And I saw no temple therein for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." Our Lord also points us to the place by saying, "Our Father who art in heaven." Heaven, then, is the place. : We speak of three heavens in the Scriptures: 1. The atmosphere: "Cities walled up to heaven." 2. The sidereal: "When I consider the heavens the work of thy hands, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained." 3. The empyreal: "The palace of angels and God." St. Paul was "caught up to the third heaven." All the Scriptures lead us to conclude that there is a visible display there; hence it is called "The presence of God." "At thy right hand." This may signify a place of favour; thus in Matt., xxv.: "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from his goats and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left." A place of dignity also-Jesus Christ is exalted there. A place of conquest: "This honour have all his saints." "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit down with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." He that comes off more than conqueror shall sit down at the right hand of Jesus. The Christian well compared to a soldier. Heaven, then, is a place as well as a state. "I go to prepare a place for you," said our Lord to his disciples.-We must attach space to bodies-Moses, Enoch, Elijah, and the bodies of the saints. II. The nature of our state. "Joy and pleasures." Metaphysical definition. * * * Joy may signify here the delight arising from the direct immediate enjoyment of God; and pleasure, the collateral sources of happiness which heaven shall furnish. We need not separate them, but, uniting them, understand, 1. The fulness, the perfection of our happiness-joy. 2. The perpetuity of it-for evermore! But wherein shall this happiness consist? "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, what God hath prepared for them that love him." Impossible for man to utter; but we may follow Revelation safely. (Swedenberg.) 1. It will consist in the perfection of our nature. The body "sown in dishonour"-human nature in disgrace, &c. -"it was sown an animal body, it shall be raised a spiritual body." The mind, also-not then informed by analogies, reasonings, and demonstrations, but by direct commu nications. 2. Exemption from sorrow and fear-"Born to trouble;" pain, sickness, wearisome days and nights. Those can best appreciate this exemption who thus suffer.-Our fears, too, are equal to our sorrows: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places"-incessant attacks from the powers of hell.-Our collected sighs would raise a tempest; our united tears would form a deluge! Now this very negative happiness, methinks, should endear heaven to us. 3. The nature of our employment. We may harmlessly suppose that we shall be like angels, ministering spirits to other worlds. Heaven is a state of rest, but not of quiescence: man must be active-freed from weariness, because his body will be no longer corporeal-quick in motion as thought, &c., &c. Another employment will be contemplation.-The works -Providence-Redemption. Another, praise. St. John, in Revelation, speaks without a figure in describing the harpers, &c.-The four-and-twenty elders falling down and worshipping, &c.—and again he uses every earthly sound which nature could furnish: "The sound of a great multitude-many waters-mighty thunderings."-The Lamb the burden of the song! 4. Again, we shall meet our friends there.-We have all some-revered parents-affectionate husbands-tender partners or lovely children "Urge onward, they cry As they flit through the sky." We shall also meet "the general assembly and church of the first-born." 5. The presence, the vision, the enjoyment of God! This is the bliss of heaven! The schoolmen ask, "How can we see God?" God never manifested himself in any other way than through Christ Jesus. We see his works, but they were all created by Christ Jesus.-Providencebut all under the guidance of Christ Jesus; Redemptionbut it was effected by Christ Jesus! Golden letters! "See him as he is!" In him concentrated, imbodied, the Father and the Spirit-the middle person-the connecting link! Angels gaze here with astonishment! This "fulness of joy" will be a continual progression also. Its perpetuity-" A perpetuity of bliss is bliss!" Application.-Sinner! it doth not yet appear what thou shalt be. "Eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive it.' Believer! Press on, no matter what cheer. SERMON XXXIII. GOD IN HIS SANCTUARY. Isaiah, iv., 5.—And the Lord will create upon every dwelling-place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night for upon all the glory shall be a defence. THE Context shows that our text refers to the times of the Messiah. I. Religious worship, whether in the family or the sanctuary, is particularly regarded by God. "Mount Zion" is the Church of the living God, &c.—it only refers to praying families; no others in the Church of God. (Includes also private prayer; and for this family prayer is not a substitute. What a solemnity, a sweetness -a cloud and a smoke, &c., the symbols of the Divine presence! Some Christians have a spot in the closet set apart; it is proper, and not superstitious-the association is great. Fletcher-his wall discoloured by prayer, &c. Have your closets been distinguished ?—I call conscience-) Sanctuary worship" her assemblies." Two or three gathered together. The word gathered refers to harmony in music! no sight under heaven more sublime! it is the home where the Father meets his family! Why God hears the ravens when they cry. II. God will express his approval by manifestations of his presence-allusion to the Jews. Not confined to the cloud and pillar-but all the luminous appearances, from the fiery cherubim in Paradise-to the appearances of Jesus-they showed a present God-appeared to patriarchs-tabernacle-and settled in the Holy of Holies. It represented the throne of the Messiah; there was no beauty if Jesus separated from it; it was the shrine of Deity, and gave the temple its sanctity. Now this, having reference to Jesus, has given way to his spiritual appearance in your hearts; the benefits of the |